Fixed Line UK Broadband ISP Connections Top 20.9 Million in Q1 2012

The communications regulator, Ofcom, has confirmed in its latest quarterly Telecoms Market Data Tables Q1 2012 report that the UK is now home to a total of 20.89 million fixed line home and small business broadband ISP connections (up from 20.43m in Q4-2011), which includes 552k superfast fibre optic based services (e.g. FTTC).

The figures (000’s), which exclude corporate connections, show that ‘Non-LLU ADSL’ services, such as those from BT’s retail division and BTWholesale based broadband ISPs, declined by around -50,000 during Q1 as consumers switched over to unbundled ‘LLU ADSL’ (e.g. Sky Broadband) or Cable (Virgin Media) providers instead.

Separately the report found that the UK is home to 33.3 million fixed telephone lines (up from 33.2m in Q4-2011), while the fixed voice market generated £2.2bn in revenues during Q1 2012; that’s £103m (4.5%) less than was the case a year earlier.

The number of total active Mobile Broadband subscribers that use a dedicated USB Dongle (Modem) or Datacard also fell by -60,000 in Q1-2012 to just under 5 million, which Ofcom suggests could be at least partly due to seasonal factors and can be “interpreted in the context of rapidly increasing smartphone data use” (not captured in their figures).

Ofcoms Telecommunications Market Data Tables (Q1-2012)
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/telecoms/Q1-2012.pdf